Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/33

17 ACQUISITION OF REAL ESTATE BY A CORPORATION. 1/ the sovereign lord, there being no mesne lords, to enter and claim the forfeiture, and that until the State did so, the title of the cor- poration was good, and it could convey such title to its grantee. In consequence, probably, of this decision, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed an Act, in 1833, to effectuate the law thus de- clared as to escheat. It provided that lands purchased by a cor- poration, not authorized thereto by an act of the Legislature, should be subject to forfeiture to the Commonwealth, but that the corpo- r.ation, its feoffor or feoffors, might hold the same, subject to be divested or dispossessed at any time by the Commonwealth; and prescribed the procedure by which the land should be escheated. The oft-cited case of Runyan v. Coster^ followed, in 1840, the same point being decided as in Leasure v. Hillegas. The case was a Pennsylvania case, which went up from the Circuit Court and the opinion was in accordance with the doctrine of Leasure V. Hillegas, and the Statute of 1833. Goundie v. Northampton Water Co. ,^ decided in 1847, ^s to the same effect, and follows the statute referred to. The only reason why the mortmain laws were considered in force in Pennsylvania was because the charter to Penn was under- stood as embracing and adopting them. In every other State in the Union in which the question has arisen, it has been judicially held that, founded on the customs of a remote past not applicable to our situation and repugnant to the genius and temper of our laws, they are not in force.^ They had their origin in feudal reasons and were purely local and English. The ecclesiastical corporations of that country held their powers without written grant, with no precise limitations, and with no limit as to the dura- tion of their existence. At the conclusion of the twelfth century, they enjoyed, in respect of territorial property, nearly one-half of England.* The lands thus holden were free from taxes, and, to some extent, from military service ; they were also free from such feudal incidents as reliefs, fines, escheats, forfeitures and ward- ships. The national strength was palsied by the diminution of military nobles ; and the feudal superiors were largely deprived of 1 14 Peters, 122. 2 7 Penn. 233. « 2 Kent's Com. 282 ; Potter v. Thornton, 7 R. T. 252 ; Odell v. Odell, 10 Allen, i ; Perin v. Carey, 24 How. (N. Y.) 465 ; Page v. Heineberg, 40 Vt. 81 ; Lathrop v. Com- mercial Bank, 8 Dana (Ky.), 114; Rivanna Co. v. Dawsons, 3 Gratt. (Va.) 19; Cham- bers V. St. Louis, 29 Mo. 543; Dodge v. Williams (Wis.), N. W. Rep. 3
 * Hallam's Middle Ages, i. 506.